


Split Happens

by 3amepiphany



Series: Starlight Lanes AU [2]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen, Other, Starlight Lanes AU, bowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leagues are forming now for this season. Join today!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Split Happens

Sam was all too happy to oblige, despite Sylvia telling him that it wasn’t necessary, and when he “reset” the board for them with the fuzzy, blackened eraser and explained that the reset button for the pinsetter wasn’t something to be played with, Sylvia couldn’t help but wish for a reset on the whole week. She could feel Peepers’ big stupid eye on her as she laced up and chose a ball to play with, and helped Wander pick one out.

Hater finally joined the group, all bristle and bustle and hot air, taking up the lane right along the wall and getting a few practice swings before Wander got his attention.

She warmed up with a few stretches while waiting for Hater to start griping so that she could call her little buddy back over and get the most out of their visit. It didn’t take long. She set her ball down on the return and walked over, ignoring Peepers blatantly as he sat there, twiddling his pencil as he kept score for his teammates, and put her hand on Wander’s shoulder. The smile she gave him and Hater was so forced that if it were a square peg in a round hole, corners would have been lost. “How’s it going, Hater?” she asked, “Fancy running into you here. Tennis a bit too aggravating for you?”

He grimaced, holding his black-and-red marbled bowling ball with both hands and opening his mouth to say something equally snarky in return.

Behind all of them, Peepers cleared his throat loudly.

“We aren’t… Uh, we aren’t really welcome back at the Rec Center,” he said quietly, when they had all turned to look at him.

“You don’t say?” replied Sylvia. “Well. Welcome to the club.”

Wander laughed. “Syl, it’s okay. Remember? No hard feelings, no harm done? No one hurt?”

“Wander, we lost our memberships. A lot of people lost their jobs. The Rec Center lost its roof and two walls in the main building and I don’t think the grass on the lawns out by the baseball fields has started regrowing yet. The roller derby team is still practicing at the high school in our neighborhood until the repairs are done.” She put her hands on her hips. “They might never be able to level out the tennis courts properly enough to resurface them.”

“Now now, he came for lessons and he got some good ones. I think we _all_ got some good ones out of that mess.” 

Hater shifted from one foot to the other, swaying a bit and looking to Peepers for what he ought to say to that. Peepers offered nothing. Sylvia sighed. This was awkward, but she hoped it would stay only that and nothing more.

Wander tipped his cap and shrugged. “It’s just a right nice surprise seein’ you guys, is all. Thought we could catch up, play some bowlin’--”

“Have a good afternoon and leave the bowling alley in one piece when we’re done,” Sylvia interjected.

“Have a good afternoon and--” Wander started, but stopped himself and then refocused, “ and maybe pick up a new hobby while we’re here. I saw on the message board by the front desk that league games are startin’ soon. Would be fun.”

“Yeah, about that,” Hater said gruffly, “Open bowling’s only a couple of hours long and I spent most of the last session in the bathroom practicing the face I’m gonna make when we win this season. I gotta practice this now or Peepers is gonna yell about it all week.” He shuffled back to set up in his lane’s approach area and pulled the hood of his sweater forward a bit more. Sylvia gave a small nod and a smile, and told Wander they ought to get back to their own game, too. Turning around to get back to their own lane, they saw Peepers’ approvingly smug look towards Hater, but just for a moment. He quickly directed their next player to go ahead and throw, but to watch his left pitch.

Sylvia took a little time to refresh Wander on how the scorecard worked, and he suggested she go first so that he could see if he could mark it down correctly.

She eased up to the approach with her ball, a bright neon yellow monstrosity that weighed just right and had comfortable, worn finger holes. There was a moment where she let herself get settled into her loud, cloppy shoes, and then she leaned forward, neck and tail straight out, and let herself act as the balance as she came up to toe the line and released. The ball hooked right and she took out eight pins, leaving two in front wobbling but still standing.

Wander whooped and clapped. And then he clapped some more when she said he’d marked it right. And then he still congratulated her and applauded when she made to knock down the split but only hit one of the remaining pins.

His excitement was, as usual, innocent but attention-grabbing.

Even when he bowled two gutterballs in a row.

“I’ll get it next time!” he said, grinning.

But he didn’t. Nor did he get it the turn after that. Or the one following _that_. Sylvia wasn’t sure if she should give him some swing pointers, or some release pointers, or just some pointers overall. Mostly because he looked like he was having a really great time regardless - he was also complimenting the Watchdogs on Hater and Peepers’ team every time they would throw, and when he’d sit down to tally the scorecard he’d hoot and holler for her, too. It wasn’t new to her that he was doing this. To everyone else it was, though. She was worried he was going to start cheering for the people bowling three lanes down from them on the other side. That would probably have to be the stopping point.

“When was the last time you bowled, Wander?” she asked, contemplating a pitcher of soda and maybe another game once they were done with the second one that the coupon allowed them, but then contemplating just how painful that might be to watch at the rate he was going.

“Gosh, you know… like I’d mentioned, it’s been a long while,” he said, sitting down next to her at the little seat in front of the projector for their scorecard.

“I remember you saying your personal best was in the high 200s.”

“That wasn’t my average.”

“I remember you saying that, too.”

He flipped the collar of his oversized bowling jersey up and down, and up and down, smiling. “I think it was because I had those neat little things that Hater’s usin’ down in his lane.”

“Bumpers? Well, yeah, you’d defin-- oh, Wander.” She laughed. “That’s it, buddy, I’m gonna buy us another game, and I’m gonna teach you how to play without those silly things.” She took a moment to take off her shoes and told him to just watch the Watchdogs bowl, and got up to go do what she’d been thinking about. Up to the bar, first. She needed a shot of something strong to chase with that soda and the frustration ahead.

What she didn’t need was to run into Major Threat, ordering a round for himself and his team, and talking to someone she thought she’d forgotten all about since her early days off of her homeworld. 

“Sylvia Zbornak,” Ryder crowed, asking her how in the flarp she was, what she was doing here, and had she met Jeff? “This is Jeff.”

Major Threat held out a hand to shake hers, and she took it reluctantly.

“This is an old pal of mine, Syl Zbornak. We used to hustle pool together out past Grebulon Blue back in the day.”

“Here to hustle the kingpins, now?” came the response, and they laughed.

She laughed, too, a bit uneasily. “I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’ve heard some stories about you, Major Threat. I was actually fixing on coming over to say hello, do the whole celebrity thing and get a photo.”

“Oh, goodness, a fan! You can call me Jeff, please, hardly anyone calls me Major Threat anymore. It’s been a long while since our last good championship and I’m afraid the only threat I offer now is to expectations.” He reached for the tumbler the bartender handed him and took a sip.

“How is it you know him?” asked Ryder, and she looked at him with a small smirk making its way across her face.

“His team beat my Gran’s at his ‘last good championship’. The next year they came right back with a shut-out.”

Jeff spit in a surprised reaction, sending his drink spattering and dribbling everywhere. “Sophia,” he said simply after recovering, taking a handful of napkins from the bartender and mopping up.

“That’s her. Like I’d said, I hoped for a photo. She doesn’t bowl much anymore, I’m afraid.” Her Gran, bless her, went on to play with a few other teams once hers disbanded a couple of seasons after that revenge win. But it wasn’t because she was getting on in years; Gran was ready to fight anything and everyone, though that was Zbornak nature - she simply wanted less and less of the attention that came with bowling pro. The hype, the hustle, the business. Forget it! Give her a big gruffle-beast hock, a mug of tea with a bit of buzzlebee honey and a shot of gin, and let her watch her grandsons tear up the yard wrestling with each other. That was really what she wanted. Sylvia pulled out her phone. “If it’s okay with you, that is. I’m sure she’d love to see you’re still at it.”

“She may actually be surprised to see I’m still alive, honestly. Most everyone has that reaction and I can’t imagine she’d have one any different. I sort of disappeared for a while after that loss. Co-ed leagues are tough, you never know who’s going to give you a run for your money.” He motioned to her to come in for a photo, and Syl was about to prep a selfie when he pointed at Ryder and told him he oughta take the pic.

It turned out pretty well. “You don’t look tipsy at all in that, it’s okay,” Ryder told Jeff.

“Ah, I’ll get there,” he mumbled, approving the picture and thanking the bartender for getting the rest of his lane’s drinks ready. “Say, uh, Sylvia, was it? What do you put up? Are you thinking of joining a league this season?”

She shrugged, sending a short message along with the photo to her mother and taking a moment to order a shot of liquor from the bartender. “We might. I’m here with my roommate for the afternoon and he seems to be pretty intrigued by all of it.”

Ryder laughed, his visor blinking and shining as he threw his head back. “You mean little Gutterfuzz over there?”

“His name is Wander, and yes. But to finish answering Jeff’s question, I haven’t done this in a long time, so I’m really rusty and I have no idea what I’d be able to put myself at as far as an average goes, just yet.” He nodded and said that was reasonable enough, but she might consider starting up a new ladies’ team for co-ed if she was interested. Something about another team forcing their way through the Board with a group of semi-sentient robots on play, and how things could stand to be evened out for everyone else’s sake. She said she would very easily think about it, and said she needed to get back to their lane before Wander got into too much trouble. Then she raised her shotglass to Jeff, thanked him for the quick intervention in his afternoon, and knocked back her drink.

Ryder exchanged phone numbers with her so that they could catch up sometime soon. She was a bit curious as to why he was hanging around at a bowling alley, but she figured there might be a better story than being blacklisted from how many other bars in the system.

With pitcher of soda in hand and two more games purchased, Sylvia returned to their lane, happy to see that Wander was still where she had left him, and avidly watching Hater’s team. It seemed more like Peepers’ team, frankly. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get this show on the road. You’re gonna go first and I’m gonna figure out what I need to teach you so you can knock down every pin at the end of that lane,” she said, refilling their glasses at their little table before sitting down to put her shoes back on. Their lane reset itself, and Wander erased their card scores from the last game.

All the while she could still feel Peepers watching. Not blatantly, but that guy had peripheral vision that could put a six-eyed Triwaganian to shame, and she knew it, and he knew she knew it. Annoying. By the end of the first run, she had given Wander every basic technique she knew. It was great, because she needed to break everything down for herself as well to make sure she could remember it, and he had just as many questions as she had tips, which was also fantastic, but for some reason he had still managed to knock down only a single pin - and that was because the ball was wobbling hard on its way down the gutter, and grazed the 7 pin as it passed behind it. A celebration, sure, but she sat down to take a moment to watch him bowl his second and last throw of the game to see if maybe he was just hooking too hard or letting go too early or what. There was still no indication that he was doing anything wrong.

Her final shot was a strike, and as she turned around she saw that Wander had marked the score down, done the math, and was waving at Peepers, who had left the console at his lane and was coming over. The look on his face was one she wanted to simply punch.

“Having fun?” the eyeball asked.

“Yes, sir! Did you see that pin that went down? I felt a bit lucky on that roll!” Sylvia took a look at the card before erasing it so they could start their last game, and called Wander up again to start. He excused himself and retrieved his ball from the return and said, “Mister Peepers, I was wonderin’, would y’all have any more room on your team for a couple of new players? We’re hoping to join a league but we have no idea where to start, and it sure would be nice to jump on in with a team of people we know to get… uh, to get the ball rollin’.” He giggled at his own pun, squeaky and goofy, and Sylvia had to stifle a laugh of her own. But Peepers was a bit taken aback by the mere suggestion, his demeanor changing discernibly.

“Oh, absolutely not!”

Wander cradled the bowling ball in one hand and tipped the brim of his hat with his other hand, and shuffled his weight on his feet a bit. “...Why not, Mister Peepers? Is it the whole rec center business? Couldn’t we use this to start over again on the right foot?”

“You’ll lower our average!” Peepers said, and Sylvia figured she ought to step in.

“Regulation doesn’t allow bumpers,” she said simply.

Peepers seethed quietly for a moment. “We’d happily take you, Zbornak, you bowl a really, really good game. Though I assume you won’t let us without Wander.”

“Good intuition.” She put her hand on Wander’s shoulder, getting ready to gently pull him back to their lane. “We haven’t even seen you bowl yet though, so I’m not sure if your team is for us.”

Judging by his expression, that seemed to be the right move. The gauntlet had just been thrown.


End file.
